I've had the idea for this story for a long time. Almost three years, in fact. I'm glad I finally got to start it, and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I had fun planning it. It's sure going to be interesting. The story is going to be about a dimension-hopping Ruby so there is plenty of material to work with. The core crossover is Dakara Boku Wa H Ga Dekinai for what basically amounts to the hub but I've taken a few liberties with that particular set of source material.
There's more I could say but I think things will clear up once we get into the full swing of things. Without further ado, let's begin the Tales of a Reaping Rose.
"Awwwgghh," Ruby mumbled, trying to fold in on herself enough that she'd become invisible. Failing that, she at least tried to shrink into her own hood. Unfortunately, William pulled the hood down and gently nudged her forward, leaving her to standing alone in front of the hundreds of Grim Reapers chanting her name. She felt her knees begin to wobble. "How did it come down to this?"
Yesterday
"Ewwww!" Weiss complained as she lifted another piece of garbage with her litter-stick, this one a particularly disgusting example of moldy underwear. "I do not understand why we have to deal with this filth!"
"Because," Blake explained, grabbing another stack of rotting fruit with one rubber-gloved hand before putting it into the garbage bag ever so slowly, "This is my punishment for leaving the school without permission for a few days and yours for breaking curfew to hunt me down." The top of her bow twitched and her body shuddered as another wave of the smell hit her. Her Faunus heritage gave her an enhanced sense of smell (not that anyone there knew about that particular tidbit about her smelling capabilities) and the garbage's stink was almost literally killing her.
Weiss grimaced, her stick gently poking the side of either a dead animal or a really furry rug. "But did it have to be so…. revolting?"
"Now now, Princess," Yang tittered, showing no hesitation as she grabbed a huge amount of garbage in a bear hug and chucked it over to a growing pile of junk she would incinerate with Ember Celica later, "Don't tell me you don't want to get dirt in your new manicure?" She faked-gasped, grasping at her heart melodramatically. "Oh, cruel world, ruining a young maiden's nails! Have you no heart?!"
Weiss scoffed. "Haha, laugh it up, Yang. It's just that some of us don't want to ruin our clothes with this filth."
Yang shrugged in response. "Not my fault you didn't prepare."
Unlike her two slow-moving companions, Yang had (wisely) decided to not do community service in her actual outfit. Instead, she removed the jacket, the scarf, Ember Celica, the outer skirt, and all the other little knicks and knacks that made up her attire, leaving her only in skin-tight black shorts and a yellow tank-top. While they were now absolutely filthy and needed to be washed several times to be completely clean, they were much easier to clean than her normal ensemble.
Yang stretched briefly, some clinging bits of trash falling off her clothes in the process, before relaxing her muscles with a content sigh. "Oh yeah, that feels much better now." She reached over and grabbed another pile of trash as Weiss returned to scowling at the filth that littered the ground. This process continued for around ten more minutes before Yang eventually groaned and stopped gathering trash. "Okay, I'm beat. Hey, Goodwitch!"
"Professor Goodwitch, Miss Xiao Long." Said Professor replied from several yards away, where she was sitting on a fold-out chair reading a particularly thick novel as she kept an eye on the team currently working as the Patch Clean-Up Crew. The only reason she was there at all was because someone needed to oversee the team's punishment and she was the 'lucky' professor chosen (She swore that Ozpin rigged the drawing. There's no way she could be picked for this job eight times in a row).
Yang sheepishly rubbed the back of her head. "Hehe, sorry, Professor. I used to call the teachers here just by their last name since I practically grew up with them, since my dad's part of the faculty and all. I guess being on Signal brought back that little habit."
"No excuses, Miss Xiao Long." It was possible to sound more bored than the blonde professor did at the moment but it would require several hours of dry history lectures. "Now what is it?"
"Can I have a break? I want to visit my dad while we're here and I've been working hard for a while. Pleeeeaaasssseeee?" She grasped her hands together in begging while she gave Glynda the classic puppy dog eyes. Perhaps she was a little too old for that but hey, as they say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right?
Whether or not the technique was still viable, it didn't matter at that moment because Glynda would have cared for it exactly the same either way- not at all. "Hmm. I think not." She didn't even bother to look away from the book to answer the brawler.
"But Professooooorrrrr~!" Yang whined as she redoubled her pleading efforts, "Me and Ruby haven't seen my dad since school started and I know that if I don't see him now I have no clue when I will!" The blonde professor flinched. Reminding her of the possibility that a Huntsman, even one who rarely does missions, could never return home at any given point in their career was a low blow but an effective one.
"Fine, you may have a short break." She made sure to stress the word short to the girl. "You may go visit your father with your sister for fifteen minutes only. Be one minute late and I'll triple your punishment, do I make myself clear?"
"Crystal!" Yang replied cheerfully, paying the warning almost no heed. She turned around and bellowed, "RUBY!" The noise was so loud that Weiss had to scramble to make sure the garbage pile didn't collapse all over the ground, groaning as rotten fruit coated her jacket. Blake managed to a let out a snicker before the smell assaulted her nose and made her retch.
"Yes?" In a flash of falling petals, Ruby appeared, dressed in a hazmat suit with a garbage bag hanging on her back. The sight of a towering heap of junk emerging from the bag made Goodwitch raise an eyebrow. Considering it didn't seem be in danger of collapsing despite having just been affected by high speed G forces, the action was understandable. "What is it, Yang?"
"Get changed, Ruby, we're going to visit Dad!" Yang told her excitedly as she walked to where she had left the duffel bag containing the rest of her outfit was and hefted it over one shoulder.
"Really?!" The red-wearing girl squealed.
Yang nodded. "Yup! Goodwitch (Professor Goodwitch, Miss Xiao Long. Sorry!) said we can go so go get-" She blinked and Ruby was dressed normally again, "-changed. Alrighty then, let's go."
Ruby was practically jumping up and down as she walked away with her sister. "Oh boy, I can't wait to see Dad and Zwei again! It's been so long! I hope they've been doing fine without us. Hey, do you think Dad forgot to hide the treats again?" Yang laughed.
"Almost certainly!"
Blake and Weiss was in the midst of setting down their equipment to join their teammates when their supervisor piped up. "And where do you think you two are going?"
They turned to face the professor, who had finally set down the book in order to give them a glare of disapproval. The two exchanged confused glances before Blake decided to state the obvious. "We're going to go take our break with them?"
"Who said you two could have a break?"
"What?!" Weiss exclaimed as Blake's bow twitched in response. "That's unfair! We've been working just as long as them! Why do they get a break and not us?!"
"Because, unlike you two, they've been actually working. Yang has been gathering many pieces of trash to incinerate all at once and Ruby has been tackling the dangerous duty of cleaning out the ocean drainage pipes while you two were dawdling around and barely doing any work at all." Blake flinched and Weiss looked away from the blonde professor, both of them unable to deny the truth. "You will continue working (Their litter sticks and rubber gloves flew into their torsos, courtesy of the riding crop now held idly in Glynda's hand) until I see you deserve a break. Right now, that is a long way off, and the longer you stand there, the farther away it is. Understand?"
"Yes, Professor Goodwitch," The Faunus-in-disguise relented before walking off to the nearest garbage pile. Weiss hesitated for a moment, torn between her self-righteousness and her sense of duty before finally giving up and copying Blake's actions, leaving the professor to resume her novel with a quick push of her glasses up her nose.
"Good."
"Achoo!" Ruby let a loud sneeze, causing dust to spring into the air before settling down on her clothes. Patting her clothes to remove the dust, she then resumed digging through the metal trunk lying before her. From downstairs she could hear her dad laughing at a story Yang was telling him.
"And I went out later and lo and behold, there it was! The workers were still busy sealing the crater back up!" Her ears burned as she realized exactly what story Yang was telling.
"Yaaannnnnggggg!" She cried out, the heat spreading down her neck. "You promised you wouldn't tell that story!"
She could hear both Yang and Taiyang laughing now. "Hehe, I couldn't help it, Rubes! I thought Dad would get a kick out of it, I know I sure did!"
"Yeah!" Her father butted in. "It was a great story! Lighten up, Crater Face!"
"Daaaadddddd!"
Oh joy, even Zwei was barking along now.
Eventually, her face cooled and she regained enough focus to continue her task. That is, looking for the photo albums.
That task came about quickly, strangely enough. She and Yang got a great big hug from their dad when they'd shown up, Zwei barking at their feet. Then Taiyang led them inside the house and immediately sent Yang off to the shower, claiming Zwei couldn't stand the smell. Considering that Zwei was just fine jumping up on Yang's legs while Taiyang held his nose, it didn't fool anyone.
While Yang went upstairs, grumbling about favoritism (it wasn't her fault that the hazmat suit took away most of the smell (okay, she did pick it for that reason so maybe it was)), she and her dad started talking about how she was acclimating to Beacon. That conversation turned to his time at Beacon and how he met her mother. Slip in a mention of how he still had some photos that they printed out for fun once and tada, attic treasure hunt. Apparently Yang got out of the shower just as Ruby went up so she went down to entertain Dad while her younger sister searched for the photos.
Maybe leaving Dad and Yang alone together wasn't the best plan….
"Achoo!" She sneezed again, sending another wave of dust into the air. Deciding to ignore the sneeze this time, she continued to sift through the trunk. She finally found the photos underneath a pile of ancient weapon parts and Dad's old leopard-print underwear (ew!) and pulled them out with an audible pop!
"Finally!" she crowed, hugging the album to her chest. She turned towards the stairs, intending to show her family the spoils of her search. However, a sneeze rose in her system just as she made to leave, the biggest one yet. There was absolutely no chance of holding it in but she tried anyway.
"Ahh-" She tried to hold her nose to no avail. "Ahh-," She grasped the album tighter to her chest, desperately trying to hold her breath as long as she could. "Ahh-" Oh boy, she couldn't fight it anymore, it-!
"AHHHHCCCHHHHOOOOO!"
Crash! Bang! Thump! "Ruby, you alright up there?!"
"I'm fine!" The cloaked girl yelled from her new position underneath a collapsed pile of family 'heirlooms' (i.e. junk that her father didn't feel like throwing away and just tossed into the attic). "I, uh, will be down in a sec!"
She heard the concern in her father's voice as he replied. "O~kay, if you say you're fine…"
"Come on, Dad, cheer up! Ruby's probably alright. If she can survive the Great Sugar War of Beacon Dorm, she can survive anything!"
"The Great Sugar War of Beacon Dorm?"
"Oh, Dad, now THAT'S a story to tell…."
As Yang began to tell her story, the sound of her talking died down while Ruby struggled to escape the pile. For some reason, Yang never talked about how that got started when she was around… wonder why?
"Come on, come on-!" She desperately tried to claw her way out from underneath a particularly rusty washing machine (family heirloom? Seriously?), her hands sliding on the floor when she tried to grip it well enough to pull herself out. She COULD semblance herself out but a) it'd be ridiculous if she had to do it just to escape the pile, b) Yang would never let her live it down if she heard about it, and c) there's a pretty large chance she'd crash into something else if she did. So… back to pulling herself out the old-fashioned way.
Finally, after several minutes of struggling and a half-serious vow to join Yang when she did her strength workouts, she managed to free herself from the pile of junk. "Finally!" She crowed triumphantly, dancing a little jig before-
"ACHOO!"
Rubbing her nose, Ruby decided to wrap things up and bring the photos down to her family. She knelt down where the photos had fallen during the, er, 'accident' (she wasn't telling Dad about this. She certainly didn't want to clean it up), and began to put them back in their album. As was inevitable whenever dealing with photo albums, she started to look at the pictures as she put them away and eventually spent more time looking at them than actually cleaning up.
There was the picture of her first birthday, cake splattered all over her chubby little face as she smiled and laughed. Around her was a much younger Yang (complete with pigtails), a cheerier Taiyang, and a still-alive Summer Rose, all of them grinning at the sight of little Ruby ruining her cake. In the background she could see Uncle Qrow lurking, a smirk that was only a slight curve away from being a smile on his face. Hehe, she'd never thought she'd see him in a birthday hat, yet there it was!
Another was of her on her first day at Signal, shyly smiling at the school's entrance while Yang was leaning on her, elbow on the top of head. In the corner of the frame, the edge's of Taiyang's fingers covering the Scroll's lense could be seen. He was never the best with taking pictures. Half the time, all you could see was his hand!
Somehow, a picture of her and Yang running away from a crowd of angry accountants had managed to sneak its way into the collection of pictures. Oh yeah, she remembered now! That was the summer Yang discovered her semblance. There was some initial… control issues. If she remembered it right, in the midst of one of those chases she'd discovered her's too!
After several minutes of reminiscing and occasionally putting a picture back into the album, the red-wearing girl was nearly finished with cleaning up the spilled photos. Good thing, too, Yang was starting to get loud again and that meant she had only a small window in which to stop her from beginning another tale.
Rushing to finish up before Yang reached the end of the Sugar War, Ruby didn't look at any more pictures until she reached the last one. Picking it up, she frowned at the unfamiliar scene on the laminated paper.
"What in the world…?"
It was clearly a family portrait and one of an especially large one at that. She counted eight children in their teens at least and a smiling lady who couldn't be past her thirties visibly pregnant.
She would have thought the lady was her mother, with the pale skin and red-tipped black hair, if it wasn't for the lack of silver eyes. No, those came from the man wrapping an arm around her shoulder, smiling cheesily like a child at a birthday party. Behind them and to the right was a slightly older man with oiled-back blonde hair dressed in a fancy suit. He didn't seem to be related but he was brightly smiling along with the rest of them. Maybe he was a family friend?
Before she could wonder about the man too much, she noticed something that made her pause. Every other person in the photo, from the parents to the children, looked a lot like her.
The oldest two, twins that were, if not identical, then unnaturally similar, had grey-blue hair tipped with red, their own silver eyes staring straight into her own. They were smiling, yet their elbows seemed to be digging into each other's ribs. The third, a son among the shortest there who was glaring at his father that had his hand on his head, didn't have the red tips but instead had that same shade of red for his whole head of hair.
If she didn't knew any better, she would have sworn the smirking fourth child was the male version of her, he looked so similar. The fifth and sixth, another set of twins apparently, were probably the least like her, having only plain black hair and skin that wasn't deathly pale. They still had her silver eyes, though, and their smiles could have easily have been pulled off her own face. The seventh, a girl smirking in a teasing way she saw sometimes in old photos of Summer, had long red hair tipped with blue. She was busy using the ends of her hair to tickle the youngest child's nose, causing the girl to swat at her.
Ruby's breath got caught in her throat when she fully noticed the last child. There was no doubt in her mind, it was a picture of her mother as a kid. Same hair, same eyes, same smile always playing at the edge of her lips. It was Summer Rose without a doubt.
"Mom," Ruby whispered, confusion clouding her mind. Dad said her mom didn't have family at all, yet here was a picture of her with them! In the family album to boot! Why did Dad say she didn't have any? Did he not want to talk about them? Did he dislike them? Did he… even know?
"RUBY!" The sudden yell snapped her out of reverie, making her scramble for the album. "WE HAVE A PROBlEM! GET DOWN HERE, QUICK!"
"Coming, Yang!" Ruby yelled back, running for the stairs. Realizing she still was holding the photo, she threw it to the side, but only after she turned it around and read the one word written there.
Skir...nir?
"What type of Grimm is this?" Blake yelled as she leapt over a tentacle. She darted in and swiped at its torso, only for Gambol Shroud to bounce off the purple scales. The creature, a giant purple mass of tentacles and legs, let out the closest thing to a roar it could make, a sort of rumbling vibration in the air.
"I have no idea, I've never seen in one of our textbooks!" Weiss answered as, with a flick of Myrtenaster, she summoned a block of ice to freeze the creature's limbs. Unfortunately, the monster smashed through it without a moment's pause. "Professor Goodwitch, aren't you going to help us?"
"Consider it training, students." Glynda replied. Aside from occasionally stopping flying debris with a snap of her riding crop, she hadn't bothered to react to the creature's presence at all. "Unless I see that you truly cannot handle it, I will not involve myself."
You've barely looked up once, how could you tell? Blake deadpanned mentally as she slid on her knees underneath a tentacle lashing out at her. She sprang upwards, launching herself onto the creature's back, where she then proceeded to slash and hack away at it in an attempt to peel back its scales.
Weiss lunged in while enhanced with red Dust, stabbing the creature right at the base of a tentacle. The tip of the rapier just barely sunk into the monster's flesh, eliciting a scream-vibration from the creature. It lashed out, hitting Weiss with a flailing limb and sending her flying into a trash pile, sending the garbage everywhere.
"Weiss!" Blake shouted. She dodged a tentacle coming for her and jumped off the creature, leaving a shadow clone to distract the strange creature while she went to make sure Weiss was alright. She reached the heiress just as Weiss sat up.
"Are you alright?" Blake asked as she grabbed Weiss's hand and pulled her up onto her feet. Weiss's response was to spit out a dirty sock.
"EWWWWWWWW!" Weiss shrieked, frantically pawing at her tongue in a futile attempt to scrape away the taste. Blake had to suppress her snickers while she watched Weiss dance around, shrieking and pawing off the filth. Eventually, though, the Schnee calmed herself down and glared angrily at their foe.
"I am going to KILL that abomination!" Weiss practically growled as she grabbed Myrtenaster off the ground and spun its barrel, the motion causing it to land on the white dust container. Gripping it so hard her knuckles turned white, she leapt at the creature, Aura fueling her jump so she reached it in a single bound. A tentacle swiped at her but Weiss did not avoid it. No, contrary to what Blake was expecting to happen, she lunged at it, Myrtenaster's blade gleaming a faint white as it plunged into the incoming appendage.
Blake winced when giant ice spikes erupted from the creature's flesh, shredding it and sending purple chucks flying into the air while the creature made a vibrating noise that, to some, sounded exactly like a shrill scream. Weiss jumped off as the creature went crazy, its limbs flailing everywhere and its body waving about madly, smashing apart the terrain and making it extremely dangerous to even attempt to get near it.
"Miss Schnee, you let your anger get the best of you." Professor Goodwitch idly remarked, levitating her chair with her on it away from the splash zone. "Such a thing tends to be fatal when fighting Grimm. It both attracts more of them and weakens your ability to make rational decisions. Try to remember to remain calm next time."
Weiss scowled while she and Blake regrouped several yards away from the front of the beast (at least, what they thought was the front). "I'll try, Professor!" She shouted as she turned towards Blake. "I want to see her try to stay calm when she's been dunked in a mound of trash." She mumbled to her Faunus companion, so low Blake almost couldn't hear it, even with her enhanced hearing.
"I have, Miss Schnee. Several times, in fact," The glacial response managed to convey both a sense of calm and an uncontrollable wave of anger, simultaneously angering and frightening Weiss beyond reason.
Before Weiss could decide whether to give a snarky remark or go cower in a ditch somewhere (only one of those was the correct choice in this situation and it certainly didn't involve opening her mouth), her train of thought was derailed by someone capable of derailing an actual train.
"Heads up, flaming Xiao Long coming in!" What appeared to be a comet smashed into the purple creature, cratering the ground and sending up a huge plume of dust that covered the area, making it impossible to see further than a few feet in front of themselves.
Cough, cough. "Weiss?" Blake wheezed out in between fits of coughing. The dust cloud filled her lungs and coated the inside of her nose, making her cough and hack in a way that she'd normally associate with throwing up a hairball.
(Not that she's ever done that, mind you! How dare you suggest such a thing! She was a cat Faunus, not an actual cat! So what if she found laser pointers irresistible and had a minor tuna addiction, that was just a coincidence!)
She tried to feel her way through the dust cloud to find someone, anyone, but she'd consider herself lucky just to find the edge of the damn cloud anytime soon! "Cough, Proff-cough-essor Goodwitch? Weiss? Cough, Yang?"
"Yes, my little kitty-cat?" Years working with the White Fang had taught Blake not to flinch at unexpected sounds (more than one mission had gone wrong before she fully learned how to do it) but it was a close thing. The disguised Faunus turned around and saw a vague blur of yellow in the cloud, bright and large. The blur bobbed closer, slowly becoming clearer and clearer until the blur morphed into the familiar blonde mane of her partner. "You Yanged?"
Blake had to hold back a smirk. Only Yang could find enough cheer to make puns during a fight. "Ya-cough-ng, did you see cough anyone else?"
Though she could barely see anything through the airborne dust, Blake could tell the brawler was pouting. "Aw, am I not good for you, Blakey? After all we've been through?"
This time, Blake couldn't help the smirk that formed on her face. "Maybe I just wanted someone who has decent puns?"
"Honey, there isn't anyone with better puns than me." Yang replied in kind. "I didn't see anyone, technically not even you. Don't worry, though, I have something better. Ruby! Scarlet Shell!"
"On it, Yang!" Blake heard the responding shout from her leader only seconds before a red blur shot past her. A whirlwind followed, spiraling and blowing intensely, sucking up all the dust in the vicinity and blasting it into the sky. Blake could finally see her teammates fully again. Yang was right in front of her, grinning, Weiss was currently trying to cough out a lung, and Ruby was several dozen feet off to the left, her normally red cloak appearing brown from all of the dust covering it. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the Professor cleaning her glasses, her book currently lying in her lap.
Blake sighed in relief upon seeing every safe. Luckily, no one was caught off guard by the monster in the dust cloud and attacked. It was extremely fortunate on their part.
Fortunate, perhaps, until she realized she didn't see the one crucial thing there.
"Yang, where's the monster?"
Her partner's grin dropped faster than Ruby's enthusiasm in the mornings. It still wasn't faster than the shadow that descended on them.
"Oh shi-"
Huff, huff, huff. "Okay, we made it, good." Ruby panted, hands on her knees while she tried to recover from her journey here and the usage of a move she was still working on. Note to self: Don't use a move you barely know after running halfway across an island. It's not good for your lungs.
While she was finishing up gathering the photos upstairs, her dad had gotten a message from Goodwitch telling him his daughters needed to get back to help with an unknown Grimm that was attacking their teammates. Once he told Yang and she called Ruby down to explain the situation. They ran back as quickly as possible without using their semblances since they weren't sure how tough the Grimm would be and they couldn't afford to be underpowered when they got there.
Taiyang wanted to come but they managed to talk him out of it, telling him that they could handle it. After all, they were Huntresses-in-training and they needed to get used to fighting on their own sometime. He only gave up coming along when they pointed out Professor Goodwitch was there and she could take over if things got bad. He knew (firsthand) how good of a Huntress Glynda Goodwitch was. He once saw her kill a Nidhogg by herself (a small one, granted, but still an extraordinary feat). She was among the best, almost certainly better than him. If she couldn't handle whatever it was, nothing on the island could.
A quick goodbye and several minutes of sprinting later, here they were, right in the thick of battle. They already got a hit or two on the beast and soon it all be over. Maybe Yang will let her get strawberry ice cream after this? That'd be great! A reward for both the cleanup and the monster-slaying!
Crash!
… Maybe that reward will come later than she thought.
"Yang! Blake!" She shouted as she saw her sister and her partner disappear between the frothing mass that was the bulk of the creature. She semblanced towards the creature, ignoring the burning sensation in the middle of her chest, and tried to reach the portion of mass her teammates were crushed under.
The tentacles held her back, though, lashing out and nearly separating her head from her body. She just barely managed to duck beneath the flailing appendage and slashed upwards with her sweetheart, trying to return the favor. It was only slightly more successful than the creature's attempt, sinking only a centimeter or two into its purple flesh before she had to yank it out, lest she lose it in the midst of the attacking tentacles. She ended up having to walk backwards while fending off the appendages with either precise slashing or a well-timed bullet, the swarm of them assaulting her too quickly for her to try and stand her ground.
Weiss joined her within moments, slashing at the tentacles that tried to surround Ruby and using her dust to freeze a few of the more outlying ones. For a split second, Ruby thought they had a shot at reaching the center mass, but the tentacles shattering their icy cages ruined that hope. Yet, maybe….
"Weiss, I have an idea!" Rolling to the side to avoid a tentacle coming at her horizontally, she landed in a crouch. She swung Crescent Rose back around and fired, sending a blow coming towards her torso into the ground instead while simultaneously using the momentum to propel herself out of its reach.
"Hmph, it better be good." Weiss leapt back elegantly just as a tentacle tried to overhead smash her, causing it to crater the ground. Landing next to her leader, she gave her a measured look, waiting to hear this idea of hers.
"Remember that attack idea I had a few days ago?" Weiss narrowed her eyes even further.
"You mean the one that ended up needing Yang to thaw us out afterwards?" When she saw her partner nod excitedly in response, Weiss frowned. "You can't be serious!"
Ruby's next words told Weiss that, unfortunately, she was. "Come on, Weiss, it'll work, I promise! If I tilt Crescent rose a few degrees to the left, I think it won't freeze us this time!"
Weiss crossed her arms, keeping an eye on the monster to make sure it wasn't about to attack them. For the moment, it was still just flailing about in its little indent in the ground, too confused and in pain to fully come at them. "You think it won't freeze us?"
"Please, Weiss? We need to stop that Grimm… thing from attacking us for a few seconds so we can free Yang and Blake! We can do it! Come on, please, try it again with me, just this once?"
Weiss remained silent for (in Ruby's mind) severely extremely long seconds before she sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Only because we need to save our teammates."
Ruby beamed at the statement. "Don't worry, Weiss, with this move, we will! Are you ready for our awesome combo?!"
"No. But I don't have a choice."
"That's the spirit!" Planting her scythe's blade into the ground, she aimed right at where the tentacles emerged from the monster's back. With only a moment's hesitation, Weiss raised Myrtenaster next to it. "Okay, 3...2...1….Ice Flower!"
Three glyphs, roughly circular discs that slightly fluctuated in size and shape, formed in front of Crescent Rose's barrel just as Ruby fired. The bullet that shot out became the focal point of a maelstrom of blue energy, the center of a howling winter storm that practically froze the very air it touched. Reeking of cold, it spiraled off, a mass of destruction that will freeze the first thing it touches with the fury of a blizzard, dooming it to a cold and lonely existence. Very few things could resist the call of winter lurking within such an attack.
Glynda Goodwitch's book was not one of those things.
Both Ruby and Weiss flinched at the Murderous Glare™ their Professor sent them. "Sorry!" Ruby yelled as the combat teacher threw her book on the ground, shattering it, while she attempted to unthaw her hands with her warm breath.
Weiss groaned before turning her own glare onto her leader. ""Come on, Weiss, it'll work, I promise?""
Ruby could only smile sheepishly in response. "One more time?"
Weiss continued to glare at her partner as she hefted Myrtenaster up for the second attempt. "Try and aim this time at something other than our teacher this time, you dolt!"
"I said I was sorry!" Even as Ruby protested, she carefully made sure she was aiming directly at the monster this time. Weiss eyed the sniper-scythe for a moment before she relented to performing the combo move again.
This time, Ruby forewent the countdown and went straight to shouting "Ice Flower!" The same maelstrom formed around the bullet and the same chill in the air could be felt around. The only difference this time around was that it actually hit its intended target.
"We did it!" Ruby cheered, hugging Crescent Rose closely to her chest as she danced around at the sight of the giant ice crystals that froze the now roaring-in-pain purple beast to the ground. She beamed as she jigged merrily, overjoyed that her brainchild had finally worked in combat. "Ice Flower worked! It was perfect!"
"Aside from shooting our teacher with it the first time around." Despite the cutting words, a smile formed on Weiss's lips. Working with her partner to produce a powerful blow against an enemy felt… rather good, actually. Seeing the product of their partnership brought to mind that night a while back when she first promised Ruby she would be a better teammate. Having it culminate in this, she realized for the first time how glad she was that she made that promise.
Her eyes widened as Ruby suddenly grabbed her hands and pulled her into her dance. For a second, she stumbled about in confusion, but then her smile returned and she joined Ruby fully in her dancing. If this was what having a teammate, a partner was all about, then she could definitely get used to this.
Though, she hoped Ruby wouldn't dance like this every time something worked out. It was rather undignified.
"Now to save Yang and Blake!" Weiss nearly tripped at the sudden happy exclamation but she managed to regain her footing before Ruby noticed. Whoops, she kinda forgot about the whole 'saving her teammates from being crushed beneath a monster' aspect of the situation. That was a little embarrassing.
Ruby turned back towards the monster, scythe ready for her to dart in and start prying the beast off the ground, when she noticed something… strange. "Hey, Weiss?"
The Schnee heiress shook her head and refocused on the situation at hand upon hearing her leader's question. "Yes?"
"Did you use any orange Dust in that move?"
Weiss thought about it for a moment and looked down at the revolver chamber within the hilt of Myrtenaster to double-check before she replied. "No, only blue. Why?"
"'Cause I don't think ice usually glows orange like that."
The dust-user only had the time to spin around and just barely see what her partner was talking about before the ice exploded. She and Ruby jumped to the ground as several ice shards the size of (admittedly short) telephone poles flew overhead and smashed against one of the trash piles still present, causing a minor avalanche of garbage and forcing the two to cover their noses at the resulting odor that spilled forth. Grimacing, Weiss hesitantly raised her head to see what happened to the monster, cautious about the potential threat of another wave of ice passing overhead.
Her slight fear was unfounded, as no ice attempted to pierce her skull when she looked up. She was, however, temporarily blinded from staring right into the blazing inferno that crowned her blonde teammate's head. With a yelp (she hoped Ruby didn't hear that), she ducked back down, rubbing at her eyes in a futile attempt to make her sight come back faster.
"Weiss, what's wrong?" Ruby asked, worried about her partner since she had yelped in pain. She wasn't Yang, she wouldn't tease her about the (admittingly funny) noise Weiss made when she was obviously in pain. When Weiss didn't reply, too busy trying to recover from her blindness, the red-wearing girl decided to take a peek at what caused her partner to react like that.
Fortunately for the girl, her sister's hair had extinguished by then, allowing her to properly see what was going on. Yang was standing in the middle of a crater, wisps of smoke coming from her gauntlets as she pulled out an ammo belt and, with flicks of her wrists that showed she had done this many times before, restocked her ammo supply while removing the old one in one smooth motion.
Behind her, Blake was still climbing to her feet, coughing harshly but otherwise appearing to be fine. The two partners were covered in dirt and had several scratches that appeared to have been from rocks but, otherwise, didn't seem to be affected by being crushed underneath some unknown purple abomination for several minutes.
"Yang! Blake! You're alright!" Ruby cheered happily, disappearing from her hiding spot in a flash of roses and reappearing to her sister within seconds. Weiss remained where she was, unable to see anything and thus didn't want to chance tripping over something and looking even more ridiculous than she already did. "We were just about to rescue you!"
Yang smirked triumphantly, patting down her hair and making sure it didn't suffer too much from being underneath the monster for so long. Luckily (for the monster), it didn't. "Oh please, Ruby, I can handle myself just fine, you know that."
Ruby pouted as Yang leaned over and affectionately mussed up her crimson-tipped hair. "I know… I just wanted to be the one to do the saving this time." She swatted off her sister's hand and frantically tried to fix her hair back to its normal wolfish appearance.
Yang's smirk shifted into a sad smile as she gazed forlornly at her younger sister. "I rather that neither of us ever need saving at all, Ruby." Then her smile once again became a smirk as she looked back at her own partner, who was still coughing. "Hey, Blakey, you haven't spoken up yet, are you doing okay? Cat got your tongue?"
The Faunus-in-disguise, after finally getting her lungs to settle, leveled a harsh glare at her brawler teammate. Said brawler teammate still smirked at her, unrepentant. Sighing, Blake shook her head, apparently giving up on ever changing Yang or her sense of humor, before she replied. "I'm fine, you managed to hold it off me for the most part. I appreciate that, Yang, thank you."
"No problemo, Blakey." Yang told her, stretching her arms above her head and sighing happily when she felt her joints pop. "I can't just let my partner get crushed beneath some purple Grimm thing, after all." The B of Team RWBY gave her a smile at hearing those words. She really liked having someone to look out for her again, make sure she'd get through things alright. She hadn't had someone like that since… him.
"Besides, where else am I going to get a cute little kitty-cat to play around with?" Annndddd back to the harsh glare.
While the two were having their little conversation, Weiss had eventually managed to regain enough of her eyesight to hobble over to where the rest of her team was gathered. "Well, now that you two are doing okay, we have another issue to deal with."
Her leader and her sister turned towards her, confusion clearly written on their faces, while Blake merely looked on curiously. The Schnee heiress sighed. Sometimes she had the thought that maybe Ruby wasn't the only dolt on their team. "The Grimm, people?!"
"Oh." Two similar voices replied, coupled with sheepish head-scratching. Weiss felt another sigh building in her system but she held it in, already knowing there was no longer any point in it.
While Ruby frantically scanned the skies in search of the monster, Yang merely rested her hands on the back of her head. When Weiss narrowed her blue eyes at her, the orange-wearing blonde lazily waved a hand in response. "It'll be coming down somewhere around here so if we just wait, it'll pop up sooner or later."
"But what if it lands on us… again?!" Weiss retorted angrily. Yang shrugged.
"Eh, I'm hoping lightning doesn't strike the same spot twice."
While the white-haired girl gawked at her teammate's idiocy, Ruby suddenly jumped between them, pointing at the sky. "Look, look, it's coming down, it's coming down!"
The other three members of the cloaked girl's team looked up into the sky at where Ruby was roughly. They saw that she was right, as a purple blob was rapidly descending from the sky, spinning and flailing in the air like a lopsided comet descending upon the earth. The sight caused Yang to grin.
"See, Ice Queen? I told you lightning doesn't hit the same spot twice."
Weiss scowled. "Don't call me Ice Queen!"
Even as the two argued, they prepared their weapons, Weiss drawing out Myrtenaster and making sure the Dust vials were set, Yang cocking her Ember Celica with a quick twitching motion. Their respective partners did the same, Ruby getting into her normal combat stance with Crescent Rose, one hand ready to fire the oversized scythifle, while Blake prepared to wield her sheathe in her other hand while she pulled back the slide on the main portion of Gambol Shroud.
The moment the monster hit the ground, Team RWBY would be there to meet it with a flurry of blades, punches, and bullets. They would uttely destroy the monster, of that they had no doubt. All they needed was for it to land back on earth and then it'll all be over. Nothing could possibly get in their way.
"Excuse me?"
The voice caused the foursome to blink, nearly losing their concentration altogether. With a start, their eyes drifted down to where the unknown Grimm would end up crashing, where an old man dressed in a suit stood, apparently unaware of what was falling right above his head.
"Is there any chance that you young ladies have seen some form of purple entity around here somewhere?" Almost against their will, their eyes returned to the falling monster, now only a few seconds away from crashing into the civilian that somehow managed to wander into the middle of their battle.
That… was not good.
Skirnir…
Since the moment Ruby first read the word on the back of that photo, the odd word had been lingering in her mind. When she arrived at the scene with Yang, when she performed Ice Flower with Weiss (oh, how wonderful that was!), even now as she chatted with her teammates, those strange syllables continued to repeat in her mind, endlessly looping over and over again until all she can think about were those seven letters.
Skirnir…
The word was extremely unusual. Never before in her life had she heard of a word so uniquely sounded, and she was there when Nora had those coffee-flavored pancakes! Yet, no matter how strange, how distinctly alien it was, it felt all so familiar to her…. Like one of Yang's pats, or a hug from her father… it just felt so… right…
Skirnir…
Even seeing the horrible situation the stranger was in didn't distract her from it. It still hovered about, gently whispering into her mind and drawing a sliver of her attention away from the problem at hand.
Only a sliver, though. It was nowhere near enough to prevent her from doing what she had to do.
She called upon her semblance once more, the feeling of her soul pushing her to speeds impossible for even a trained Huntsman to handle surrounded her and put her at ease. No matter what, there were few things that just plain felt as good as using her semblance. In her characteristic flash of falling petals, she rushed at the man, tackling him roughly and sending the two of them to the ground. Her momentum caused their point of impact to be several feet away from the man's original position, just far enough to avoid the main bulk of the monster that crashed there moments later.
Skirnir…
Coughing out the dirt that suddenly filled her lungs, Ruby looked to where the man had next to her. "Are you cough okay?" At first, he didn't respond, just stared blankly at her. Then, with agility unfitting his apparent age, he leapt to his feet and dusted off his clothes before looking down at her with a self-deprecating smile.
"I am well, thanks to you, young lady. Thank you for pushing this old fool out of the way of the entity he was sent to retrieve." Now that she was closer, she could get a good look at him. His black suit was old-fashioned and rather plain, lacking any splotches of bright collar aside from his white dress shirt. Despite that, it appeared to be well-maintained and particularly crisply-cut, especially when one considered he just was tackled to the ground.
His clothes only served to compliment his thick grey hair, which was oiled back until his entire pale forehead could be seen. His lack of bangs helped show off his blue eyes, which looked to be a somewhat medium shade. The years didn't seem to affect his eyes at all, being rather bright and clear for a man his age. Around his mouth was a carefully groomed goatee, not a hair falling outside its curvature.
Overall, the elderly man reminded her of a butler, with his fine clothes and careful grooming. Though why some random butler was out in the outskirts of Patch, she didn't know. Maybe he was on break?
Skirnir...
Though, for some reason, he looked strangely familiar…
And if the way he now narrowed his eyes meant anything, he thought the same of her…
"Ruby!" The sheer panic she heard in Yang's voice drove the teen out of her reverie and, turning around, she saw her older sister desperately dash towards her, gauntlets firing in an attempt to gain even more speed than she already have. Weiss and Blake were following closely behind, their own weapons grasped tightly as they ran with all they had towards her.
Skirnir…
They wouldn't make it, though, not before the purple beast did.
Her silver eyes widening as the tentacle-covered monstrosity rushed in at a speed that should be impossible for something that just plummeted into the ground at extreme speeds, Ruby tried to swing Crescent Rose up in order to fend it off and protect the civilian. Before her sweetheart was even halfway through its swing, it practically was already on, tentacles thrashing about as they lunged towards her. She desperately flung herself at the monster, hoping that she could at least buy the man time to escape while the purple creature focused on her.
I'm sorry, Yang. She could see her sister's face twist into an expression of horror as she redoubled her efforts, trying against fate to reach her before the monster did. I guess I won't get that chance to save you after all. At least I'll die a hero like Mom…
She closed her eyes and thrust out her hand, already knowing there was no chance for her to survive. As her hand made contact with the strangely slimy scales of the monster, she tried to think about how she was abandoning her team, how she was leaving Yang and Dad alone again, how she'll never become a true Huntress. No matter how hard she tried, only one word dominated her final thoughts.
Oh, what the hell. If she was going to die, she might as well say it out loud at least once.
"Skirnir."
Feeling heat on her hand, she figured it was just her warm blood dripping on her hands, simply from where the monster flayed her skin from her bones. She didn't feel any pain, though. Strange. Maybe it destroyed her nerve endings or something? At least she'll die without pain.
"Ru-!" The sudden cutoff of her sister's frantic shout only reinforced that thought. She smiled sadly, glad to know that her sister wouldn't have to listen to her cry in anguish while she died.
I'm finally coming to see you, Mom…
For a single moment, Ruby was at peace.
Then she smashed into the creature's body, driving all her air out of her lungs in a gasp. Falling back onto the ground, her eyes darted open as the impact drove jagged spikes of pain directly into her system. Her Aura protected her from the worst of it but it still felt like she ran headfirst into a brick wall without any protection at all.
Looking up at the beast, Ruby was flabbergasted at what she saw. Instead of the purple creature bearing down on her, tentacles ablazing, she saw the beast thrashing about on the ground as its back half just vanished, its presence replaced by a wall of green flame. It cast a sickly glow on everything nearby, coating them in a bile-colored shade of yellow-green. Looking beyond it, she saw the battlefield as it was before they started fighting, merely a field with the occasional pile of garbage stacked on it. There was no sign of either the fight or her teammates.
Am I dead, because none of this makes any sense right now. Blinking, she pinched herself and yelped quietly. Okay, so either I'm not dead or the gods have a very sick sense of humor.
"By Death himself…" The awed voice reminded Ruby that she wasn't alone so, wincing as her system continued to tell her, yes, she probably wasn't dead but still was in a good deal of pain, she lifted herself just enough to face the old man still present.
"Are you okay?" She asked for the second time in many minutes, mentally groaning about the need to ask it again. What a great rescue on her part, saving the man once only to continue to put him in danger! Good job, Ruby, sheesh.
He didn't immediately respond, only stared at her with…. was that wonder in his eyes? "I, I thought it might have just been a coincidence," He murmured, continuing to do nothing but stare at her with wide eyes. "But… that spell… it just has to be…"
"Spell? What spell?" Ruby asked as she used Crescent Rose to steady herself while she tried to stand up. Apparently, she was a bit more hurt than she thought. Someone used a spell? Wait, does that mean… magic is real?! Ooohhh, I can't wait to tell Yang I was right!
Before the man could respond, a rumbling version of what could have been a scream filled the air. As Ruby watched before her disbelieving eyes, the surviving front half of the monster somehow started to bubble, its scaled flesh forming massive bulges of muscle and who knows what else that constantly changed size on its body. Within moments, they burst, pouring out rivers of mass that encircled the creature, increasing its size drastically within a few moments. By the time it was done, it was as if the purple monstrosity had never been cut in half at all.
"It can regenerate?! Seriously?!" O~kay, that was it, she was done fighting it now. Even if she had the strength to continue, she wouldn't. Killing monsters was one thing, but killing a monster that never dies over and over again until she collapsed from exhaustion? Hahaha, no.
However, glancing at the old man out of the corner of her eye, she saw he showed no signs of moving. He merely stood there, watching the beast get used to its newly reconstructed body by jumping a few times.
Okay, so should I follow common sense and just leave the regenerating Grimm alone or do I stay here to protect the old guy? Without even bothering to think about it, she slid over in front of the old man, standing in between him and the monster.
"I'll hold it off while you run away!" She told him as she attempted to level Crescent Rose at the beast despite the strain it put on her. She wanted to be a Huntress, someone who lived to make the world a better place. No matter what happened, a Huntress would never leave someone behind. They would always stay behind and make sure that everyone got out safely, that they would live and lead happy lives when they made it back home. That is what they do.
That is what her mother did and that is what she will do as well.
She felt a hand land on her shoulder and heard the old man speak with steel in his tone. "I appreciate the thought, your highness, but I think it is time I handled the situation personally. Excuse me for this."
She barely had the time to mouth your highness? before she felt weak all of a sudden, weaker than she ever had before. Her legs became gelatin and she slumped to the ground, unable to hold her own weight any longer. As Crescent Rose thumped onto the ground next to her, she watched the elderly man walk past her towards the beast, his footsteps steadier than she would have thought. She blinked and there was an ornate smoking pipe in his hand, darkly-colored and lined with silver on its edges.
"I was sent to retrieve you," He said as he stopped right in front of the monster, which only now seemed to recognize his presence. He raised the pipe but, instead of putting it to his lips, he pointed it at the monster like a general would point his sword at his enemy, "but, in lieu of your recent actions, I think it is best if I simply destroy you now." Ruby, from her place on the ground, saw a shimmer in the air behind him, a gleam that reflected the shine the wall of flame gave off. It seemed to meander through the air, slowly growing and thickening until it formed an orb the size of a basketball. It hovered behind him, gently undulating but never seeming to burst. With a start, she suddenly realized that it was probably an orb of water. Water that he collected from the moisture in the air. It was easily one of the more powerful semblances she'd ever seen, probably alongside Professor Goodwitch's.
Speaking of which, where has she been this whole time?
Glynda Goodwitch sneezed, causing her to drop the riding crop she had nearly managed to put between her frozen fingers. She had been trying to get a good grip on it for a while now in order to help her students with the recent complications in their battle. That was the closest she had gotten this whole time. Growling, she leaned back down to start the whole process over again.
Oh, she was putting those two girls in detention for this.
Probably helping her teammates, wherever they were.
The monster seemed to grow bored of merely watching the man and lunged at him, its strange equivalent of a roar filling the air as its tentacles whipped towards the man. Ruby grabbed Crescent Rose from where it was next to her and aimed it at the creature, managing to pop off a shot that deflected one of the appendages away.
Because of what happened next, she probably should have just let it keep going.
"Levia." The word was spoken quietly, yet what followed was anything but. With a sound reminiscent of a sword slashing the air (a sound she was intimately familiar with), water was blasted from the orb like a high-pressure hose, pounding against the ground right in front of the man and churned the earth into a frothing brown soup. The moment the tentacles even touched the beams of water, they were ripped apart like paper in a shredder, torn apart from the sheer pressure the water exerted. Ruby's mouth dropped from the ease with which the stranger destroyed the tentacles that took so much effort from her team to even cut one deeply.
Despite the vast amounts of liquid splashing into the air, the man was not touched by a single droplet.
"Chelone." The water suddenly stopped spraying and, against all logic, floated in the air in place. The unusual being, seeing its chance, rushed at the man, apparently intending to crush him beneath its bulk. Once it got within a few feet, the hovering water stream reacted. It dropped to the ground and, instead of soaking into the ground, flowed quickly over to the tentacles that served as the beast's tentacles. It flowed upwards on them, looking like the world's most unusual backwards waterfall in the process, and encircled the creature's body so thickly that within seconds it looked like the monster was wearing a suit of water.
Inexplicably, the purple beast stopped moving only a foot away from the stranger, who merely gazed at it coldly. It didn't want to stop, Ruby could see it struggling to step forward more, but somehow the water coating it was holding it back. Then slowly, painstakingly, it sunk to the ground, the water appearing to weigh it down until finally it hit the soggy dirt. It tried to make that rumbling noise it had sounded out earlier but all that happened was that the water wobbled slightly.
"You nearly cost us our future," The old man knelt down next to the fallen beast and held out his pipe over it so that the opening on top was facing down towards its body. The orb of water followed his movement, drifting over to where the thin portion of the pipe stuck out slightly into the air. "And for that, your punishment is utter annihilation. Messina."
It was as if a dam burst. In seconds, the orb was sucked into the pipe and an absolute flood came out the other end, hundreds of gallons cascading impossibly from the tiny opening, pounding both the earth and the monster with all the fury of an ocean storm. The purple creature was crushed into pieces in moments, the surviving chunks of its body washed away almost before they were separated from one another.
Just like that, it was all over. Ruby was left gaping as the old man picked up a pink fleshy object from the beast's soaked remains that looked like someone had tried to combine a heart and liver into one organ but gave up halfway thorough. He crushed it in his hands and all around him the remaining chunks of the creature suddenly vanished, like they never existed at all.
Alright, that's definitely the strongest semblance I've ever seen. Ruby thought, watching the man pull out a handkerchief from inside his suit jacket and wipe off his gore-covered hand. I would sooooo love to see him and Professor Goodwitch fight. It'd be the awesomest thing ever! Images of the man firing spears of water at her combat teacher while she dodged and summoned the resulting rubble from his attacks to counter him with filled her mind, causing a dreamy smile to form on her face. Ohhh, she had to get them to spar, even if took giving them all the strawberries she could afford!
"Your highness, you are not badly injured, I hope?" Blinking, the teen Huntress-in-training cleared her mind of hypothetical duels and brought her attention back to reality. The stranger stood in front of her, trying to give her a hand. Blushing in embarrassment for ignoring him, she grabbed the offered hand and was pulled to her feet, where she took the moment to check herself over before she replied.
"Yeah, I think so." She answered after careful inspection. "I'm just a little tired and Aura-depleted, so I need to rest for a while. Aside from that, I'm good!" She gave the man a thumbs-up, the sight of which caused him to smile.
"Well, I'm pleased to hear that, your highness." He said with relief clear in his tone. "It would have been heart-breaking to find you after so long, only to watch you perish as a result of my negligence."
Ruby smiled uneasily and rubbed the back of her head. "Hehe, yeah, I'd rather not die either." She deliberately chose to ignore the fact she had essentially chosen to do so several minutes previous. What mattered was that she didn't and that was all she was going to say about it. "Hey, by the way, why do you keep calling me 'your highness?'"
The question brought a frown to the old man's face. "You do not know?" He appeared to think deeply about something for a moment before eyeing her with an undefinable emotion in his eyes. "You are… Summer's…. Child, correct?"
"Summer?" Ruby suddenly felt butterflies in her stomach for the first time since they arrived on Patch. "You knew my mother?"
"So you are? And she did not tell you?" All of a sudden, his blue eyes widened as apparently he was struck with an epiphany. "Ah, yes, I see now. I suppose it was only natural for her not to tell you."
"Tell me what?" Just what was going on here? Why did the random old man seem so familiar? How did he know her mother? What didn't she tell her?
The old man opened his mouth to reply but then shut it with a sigh. "Let's reunite with your… companions first before I explain. I imagine they are extremely worried."
Ruby's eyes widened as she realized Yang was probably going crazy since she vanished. "Oh! Right!" She looked over to where she saw them last and once again the green wall defied all explanation in showing her how the world looked before they came in clean-up today. "Umm… where are they, exactly?"
"On the other side of the barrier, of course." The old man stated matter-of-factly. "You need to make it dissipate first."
"What do you mean? I didn't make that." She'd remember if her semblance made giant weird walls of unnatural green flame, thank you very much. Besides, didn't he say it was magic?
"But of course you did. You did say the sacred word, after all." When she gave him a blank look, he sighed. "Oh, for Death's sake… Skirnir."
That's a sacred word? Any further thought was interrupted by a yellow blur came rushing onto her, knocking her to the ground for the third time that day. She blinked and the blur slowly shifted into the easily-recognizable mane that was Yang Xiao Long's hair.
"Ruby, you're okay!" As Yang squeezed her in the hug to end all hugs, the cloaked girl saw the other half of Team RWBY running to them from the cratered landscape where most of the fight was fought. She rapidly blinked a few times when she realized, yes, somehow the proper landscape was back and not that strange view of its past state.
"Yang, I'm completely fine, don't worry," Ruby told her with a smile on her face. She hugged her back, glad that she still could do so. If that fight had gone just a little bit differently…
"You are? Good…" Suddenly Yang's grip tightened, cutting off all air to Ruby's lungs and causing the younger girl's face to turn blue. She frantically tried to escape the death-grip but her struggles only made it become tighter. "... because I'm going to KILL YOU! WHY DID YOU TRY TO THROW YOUR LIFE AWAY LIKE THAT, RUBY?! MY HEART STOPPED WHEN I SAW YOU THROW YOURSELF IN THAT THING'S PATH! THAT WAS THE MOST IRRESPONSIBLE THING YOU HAVE EVER DONE! I CAN'T EVEN IMAGINE HOW I COULD EVEN EXPLAIN TO DAD THAT HIS YOUNGER DAUGHTER DIED BECAUSE OF SOMETHING SO FOOLISH AS THAT! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA OF HOW SAD ME AND DAD WOULD HAVE BEEN?! ANY IDEA HOW HEARTBROKEN WE WOULD HAVE BEEN?! WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY FOR YOURSELF?!"
During her lecture, Yang had let go of her sister and she collapsed to the ground, where she appeared to sink into herself as the blonde continued to scold her. Weiss and Blake stopped where they were, getting the feeling that coming any closer would be an affront to the two sisters currently having a moment.
When Yang stopped yelling and glared at Ruby, the red-wearing girl wrapped her arms around her knees before looking up at her older sister, tears pooling in the corner of her eyes.
"I'm, I'm sorry, Yang! I'm sorry!" It was like the floodgates of Vale had opened. All of a sudden, Ruby started sobbing, tears pouring down her face like it was a waterfall. Despite this, Yang continued to hold her glare. "I, I just didn't want him to die! It wouldn't have been right! I didn't think about how it'd made you and Dad feel! I'm sorry for making you worry, Yang, I didn't mean to! I'm sorry!"
Slowly, Yang's glare softened, and she knelt down next to her sister. She put her hand on Ruby's shoulder, causing her to look Yang in the eyes. "Ruby…" The Xiao Long sibling said softly, "It's alright. I just don't want my baby sister to just throw her life away, okay? I don't think I could live with it if my younger sister just died on me before she even got a chance to be a real Huntress. Promise me you'll think about that the next time something like this happens, okay?" Ruby nodded as she sniffed, her crying slowing to a stop.
"I promise, Yang." She lunged in and wrapped her older sister in a hug. With a smile, Yang returned it with gusto. Their teammate walked closer to them hesitantly, unsure if it was safe to be there yet.
"Whatcha think you're doing there, Blakey? Come on, there's room for more in this hug!" Apparently no, it wasn't. The (not-so) secret Faunus debated for a moment whether or not she could run off before Yang dragged her in by force. She then saw the look in the blonde's eyes and just knew it in her mind that there was no point resisting. Rolling her eyes, she walked over and was quickly subsumed into the hug.
Weiss shook her head as two sets of eyes, one silver and one purple, slowly roved over to her. "No no no no no, NO! I am NOT joining your hug and there is nothing you can do to make me!" Those two pairs of eyes met each other and seemed to mentally communicate something between them. Without warning, the two hugging sisters leapt at a shocked Weiss, who only had time to turn around in an attempt to escape before she was buried beneath a pile of human bodies. Blake, who had been dragged along for the ride, somehow ended up on top, where she quickly took her chance to escape the physical bonding going on. She went to the side of them and watched them, a smile coming to her face at the sight of the 'dignified' Schnee heiress trying to squirm her way out of the sisters' grasp like a toddler getting out of its parent's grip.
Yang laughed as she and Ruby grabbed Weiss's legs just as she was about to crawl free and dragged her back into their arms. "Come on, Ice Queen, can't you feel the love?"
"DON'T CALL ME ICE QUEEN!"
"Ahem." The noise interrupted the two sisters and Weiss in the middle of their escapade, the children of Taiyang sandwiching the Schnee between them and said Schnee currently trying to pull Myrtenaster out to stab the two. They, along with Blake, who had been inching her way around them in order to keep directly out of their line of sight lest they try to suck her back in, turned their attention towards the stranger, who had been watching them with an amused expression on his face. "Pardon me, but I have extremely important business to take care of with one of you so may you all please quickly wrap up your little bonding session?"
"Hey, nothing is ever important enough to interrupt team bonding." Despite her protest, Yang extracted from the tangle and stood up, the other two involved following closely behind, Ruby sheepishly and Weiss indignantly. "So what do you need from us?"
"I only have business with the princess, not all of you."
Yang jerked her head towards Weiss. "Well, there she is."
"Hey!"
"No, not her." The four looked at him in confusion, Weiss just about to start explaining for the upmost time she was an heiress, not a princess. The old man gestured towards Ruby. "Her."
"Me?" Ruby asked dumbfoundly, pointing at herself.
"Her?" Weiss copied her teammate leader, raising a finger to point in surprise at the cloaked girl.
"My sister? A princess? What are you talking about?" At Yang's words, the stranger looked at her and narrowed his eyes, looking her up and down slowly. Yang had been the subject of many lecherous looks in her life (her outfit practically demanded it), but this was something else entirely. It was almost like he was… judging her.
"What is your name?" The sudden question made Yang blink in surprise.
"Yang Xiao Long."
"And your sister's?"
"Ruby Rose." Just what was he getting at?
Just like that, his gaze relaxed and he looked away from her back towards Ruby. "Ah, that explains it. Half-sisters, I presume?"
"What does that have to do with anything?" Yang growled angrily, clenching her hands into fists. She hated when people brought that up. To her, Summer and Ruby were more like family to her than her own mother, and whenever someone brought up the fact that she and her sister didn't share the same mother, she had to stop herself from knocking their teeth out of their skull. All that mattered was that she and Ruby were sisters, no matter the amount of shared blood. She absolutely despised the insinuation that they weren't. She loathed it.
"I simply needed to confirm that you were not a heir. I did not mean to offend." Apparently, the man picked up the anger in her tone and tried to appease her. It didn't work but it at least it showed he noticed.
"A heir to what?" For the first time since they reunited with Ruby, Blake spoke up. The man shot her a grateful glance for the change of subject before he answered her.
"To the throne of Grimwald."
The unfamiliar word made Blake raise an eyebrow. She considered herself fairly well-read but she had never heard the word before in her life.
"Grimwald?" Yang calmed down enough to pay attention to the proceedings by now and Weiss had gotten out of her daze to join them. Only Ruby was still out of the loop, still pointing at herself while mouthing the word 'princess?'.
"The home dimension of all Grim Reapers, of which our princess is a member of."
Silence ruled over the field for several minutes as everyone save simply stared at the man. In sync, the three girls swiveled their heads to Ruby, who noticed that everyone's attention was now on her.
"What?" She asked, glancing between her teammates as she tried to figure out why they were looking at her. Was there something on her face?
"Allow me, your highness." The old man, his eyes filled with joy, knelt before her and, to her surprise, bowed his head in deference to her.
"Your mother, Summer Rose, is, in truth, a member of a species of extradimensional species of death gods. Grim Reapers, if you will. And not just any member, either. Her true name is Summer Restall Galderbrog Dredal de Rose la Rexthanatos, the eighth child of our last king and queen. She fled after a great civil war killed her siblings to this dimension, where she eventually gave birth to you, Ruby Rose.
In truth, your true name is Ruby Xiao Long Restall Galderbrog de Rose la Rexthanantos, and you are the rightful heir to the throne of Grimwald and all Reaperkind."
During the explanation, Weiss's mouth had dropped practically to the ground, Blake's eyes were so wide that they nearly burst out of their sockets, and Yang had gone so still that a bird could have perched on her. And yet they didn't hold a candle to Ruby's reaction.
"WHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTT?!"